Need suggestions !!

I have a lawn customer that was a slow payer over the past year. but I continued lawn care. I submitted my final bill in nov. and have still not recieved any $$. I have rebilled him five times since then adding 2% each time and have left two phone messages.I have gotten absolutlly no response @ all from him. I am thinking about fileing a lien @ the court house on his house. Anyone had any people like this and what did you do to get paid.

I think there might be a plan from GE or one of the finance companies where you can basically sell their debt, and they will give you cash for what they owe you.

So the customer owes you 500$ - you sell the debt, get your money right away, and let the other company collect their money. The nice thing about it is, it takes you out of the middle. Plus, whats the worst that can happen - you piss the customer off? Who cares, he's not a paying customer anyway!

I had a customer that owed me quite a bit of money and could never get paid. I found out that he was a well respected individual at the local bank. I went to the bank every week and asked him to pay his bill. It took three trips to get my money. He figured out real quick that I had time to come in every week. Maybe it wasn't the best way of handling it but it seemed to work well. The best line he gave me was that he couldn't pay me because he couldn't get to his money. I asked why he didn't use the bank that he works for. At that point he was ready to pay.

Show up at his house when you know he is home. Pull up off to the side so he can't see your vehicle, so there will be a good chance he will answer the door. NEVER wait this long to get in contact with a customer. When you saw he wasn't paying, you should have been knocking much sooner.
If he says he will send you a check, do what you can to get the check before you leave. Tell him to post date a check if he has to, but you want paid now. You got to be forceful and confident, that you want your money, and you will get it. It's worth a shot.

Thats a tough situation. It usually isnt worth your time to go to the courthouse to file a lien and go that route (unless you have the extra time). I did it one time, won the judgment for $350 and received $1.25 per month until it was paid off (they filed bankruptcy).

If it happened again to me, I would do what Wise said and pay a collection agency to collect. I highly suggest switching your clients over to automatic credit card and/or bank draft. If you use quickbooks it is really easy to implement, and you would be surprised how many go for it.